Wednesday, July 28, 2010

HEADS UP!!!


The title of this post is actually intended for me rather than anyone who may stumble across it. There is a need within me to wade out into some deeper waters than have run through here for quite some time, and I know there will be a ruffled feather or two. The key for me though is to try my best to avoid all political correctness and just let 'er rip. My only real political ties are to the Kingdom anyway, so I won't be betraying any allegiances or sneaking 'round under the cover of night.
You see, I just got through watching yet another video report about the plight of a homosexual youth who has experienced discrimination at the hands of someone in the faceless establishment. It was not a case of physical violence, thankfully, because that stuff is a crime against all of us. Rather this was a crime against someone's rights and their expectations of how their life should play out in a just society. The details are not truly important to what I am going to write, but if you want to check it out just click the link. The point of this post is not to try this case in a one man courtroom, but rather to look at the bigger mosaic of which this is just a piece. The place that homosexuality has won in our society and collective thinking continues to expand to the point where stories like this are not really about the valiant struggle of the downtrodden. They are stories about the twisted, conservative minds that will not yield to the onslaught. If you do click the link you will find it very difficult to miss the long panning shot of the street sign in a small town which I am certain is not the focal point of anyone else in the town but those who are visiting journalists looking for an angle. The street sign is 'Church Street'. Wow, not to hard to miss the bias in this story from that point on is it? I actually went on Google Earth and Google Maps to find this street and sure enough, there it is. The only problem I have with this is that the context is way off. The school that is in the law suit with the young woman is her former high school 340 kilometers north in Fulton, Mississippi, while the street sign is in the town of Wesson where she now lives. No mention of that as they pan by the sign, nor any panning across the street sign for Martin Luther King Drive which is actually in the same town as the school. I guess it pays to do your own "Digg"-ing instead of letting someone else blindly link it for you, eh?
I don't actually mind the dig at the church that much. In reality they should know that it is the church that stands against this rising tide. The church does stand against the tide of broken sexuality and homosexuality along with all the other hellish things that are devouring humanity. The real church that is. I'm not even going to go into all the politics circling around the North American church like toilet water. The bible is far more plain than we like, and leaves us no place to hide in the face of those who do not like what it says. Honestly this post is about those things we don't like. It is about the things I don't like. The word of God is a mirror, and anyone who takes a good long look will come away with a burning desire for a Merle Norman makeover. We are just downright ugly. Nobody likes that. I don't like that.
There are many things in my life that I would love to just paint over. It would be even better if I could get a whole bunch of people to agree with my point of view, people who would tell me that it is okay to be the way I am. People who had huge legal warchests like the ACLU wouldn't hurt either. It would have been great if I could have gone to them when those church folk confronted me on my addictions. I could have hung that church, that pastor, that truth out to dry, and even made a few bucks along the way. What right did they have to say that my addiction was wrong? What right did they have to say that it was destructive? What right did they have to say that I couldn't lead a simple little thing like an artist's group? What right did they have? They didn't have any right, except that which scripture gave them. It didn't matter whether they handled the whole thing correctly or not, scripture stood as the final authority on the matter. That meant my only option was to accept what it said, and deal with the excruciating work of letting the sword have its way, or slap a fig leaf on and run like hell the other way. There was no other way.
Of course I just had an addiction. Homosexuality is a genetic predisposition these days. Hmm. After a 43 year lifetime of dealing with a highly addictive nature I would beg to argue that addiction is also a genetic predisposition. Of course that all winds down a very slippery path, so I will leave that for you to ponder as you wish. The bedrock I want to set this on is the word of God. In the scripture I see no debates over what is sin and what is not. If there were such debates it would take a crane to lift the book for all the pages it would fill, kind of like what you would have if you had to move the ACLU's files to a new office. What I do is sin, and what you do is sin. Period. No one would tell me that it is ok to continue on in a lifestyle that will ultimately destroy me. I say ultimately because it may be possible to escape any kind of devastating ramifications in this life, but we are talking scripture here, and it makes it very clear that there will be a reckoning for all of us. It would be wrong of me to tell someone that they can deny God and go their way just because their urge to follow that path is so incredibly overwhelming, or even if there is no urge against a God they do not even know. It would be wrong of me to hide God from them simply because it will introduce them to a battle they didn't even know they were in in the first place.
Like I said early on, I don't like looking in that mirror. That is until I see the other face reflected back at me, the face of Jesus. The face of the one who died to stand at my side in this battle. The one who lives to see me redeemed from all that would devour me. How dare I rob someone of the presence of the God of all the universe standing at their side in the fight for their life? Just because I don't want them to be offended? Or perhaps just because I don't want to be offended? This is so much broader than just homosexuality. This is the battle we are in every day. Fighting our way through the fiery darts to make someone else aware of the deadly siege they are right in the middle of. Maybe we would be more effective if people saw our armor instead of just another person riddled with bloodied darts. Don't forget, Christ IS our armor!

2 comments:

diana said...

hey brad!
so right- so right- sin is sin- mine, yours, theirs. and Jesus lived and died for us ALL.
i think of the Love verses from 1 Cor 13- you know, love never gives up. that's what Jesus does for each of us- he never gives up. but we(i) am still struggling to be more like Him. tho i know He gives me the grace to love every one. not in judgement, but in truth.
so - to never give up may really mean that we never give up on extending the grace of God's love tho it seems that few care for it.
Blessed is he who takes ridicule for saying- sin is sin.

Amrita said...

I agree with you Brad